


The House of the Setting Sun

by Vigs



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: BDSM, F/M, Gen, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-05-23 21:19:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6130415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vigs/pseuds/Vigs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose knows better than to jump to conclusions where the Doctor is concerned...or at least, she thought she did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place after "Father's Day" but before Jack's introduction. Nothing non-consensual actually happens, but for a while Rose thinks that it has.

Rose usually slept very well on the TARDIS. She didn’t have to make herself go to bed before she was tired, her bed was huge and soft, her room was always just a little bit cold so she could get nice and cozy under the blankets, and there was a persistent, soothing hum that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.  
  
As usual, she had fallen asleep easily enough, but she’d woken up from a nightmare and couldn’t seem to find sleep again. It had been a jumbled memory from a few days before; in her dream, the Doctor stormed away for good, taking off in the TARDIS and stranding her in 1987 with the reapers. She’d run about the deserted town hoping to find him, but every time she turned a corner, all she found was her father jumping in front of a car.  
  
So yeah, not a particularly restful sleep. She decided to give up and got out of bed, adding jeans and a hoodie to the vest and knickers she slept in, and walked to the console room. The Doctor would probably be tinkering in there, and she could use some company.  
  
All the lights were on, but the console room was as silent and empty as the hallways had been. Rose frowned, wondering how she would ever find the Doctor on his maze of a ship.  
  
“I don’t suppose you could tell me where he is?” she asked the TARDIS.  
  
She half-expected a door to appear that would take her right to him, but instead, the screen on the console turned on. It showed a static view of some sort of storeroom, with shelves full of pillows and sheets.  
  
“He’s...in the laundry room?” Rose guessed. “Is there a laundry room?” The ship didn’t answer.  
  
She frowned at the image. It didn’t look like a room on the TARDIS; not that she’d seen all of them, but it seemed too neat and too mundane. There were no alien bits and bobs stuffed in a corner, just neatly folded sheets.  
  
Rose almost jumped out of her skin when someone who certainly was not the Doctor opened the door and walked into the picture.  
  
“Okay, definitely not the laundry room,” she muttered, examining the person on the screen. She seemed to be human, although Rose knew that didn’t count for much. If she was human, she had to be at least forty, to judge by the streaks of grey in her dark brown hair, but she was expertly made-up to a degree that made it hard to pin her age down farther, and wore a businesslike navy pencil skirt and pumps with an ivory blouse that showed a decidedly un-businesslike amount of cleavage. She sorted briskly through the piles of sheets and through drawers Rose couldn’t see, made notes on some sort of tablet, then exited the room again.  
  
“So if that’s not a room in the TARDIS…” Rose thought out loud, then walked over to look out the window on the door.  
  
Yep, apparently they’d landed in the room on the monitor while she was asleep. Well, if the Doctor insisted on making a trip without her, the Planet of the Linen Closets wasn’t a bad pick, but she wasn’t going to stay put now that she knew .  
  
She reached for the door handle, then hesitated.  
  
“It’s not...poisonous or anything out there, is it?” she asked. There was no response. “All right, well, stop me if I’m about to accidentally kill myself, I s’pose.”  
  
She held her breath while opening the door, but was not immediately sucked into vacuum or overwhelmed by toxic fumes, even after she stepped outside and inhaled cautiously.  
  
“Planet of the Linen Closets, piece of cake,” she muttered, and walked through the door the woman on the monitor had entered from.  
  
The other side of the door said “Employees Only,” but the rest of the room was much more interesting. It seemed to be some sort of classy pub. The design seemed human enough, lots of dark wood and red velvet; the only odd thing was that the room was lit with an orange glow from glassy stripes in the floor. People sat at tables alone or in pairs, sipping drinks. The ones who sat alone seemed to be surveying the room intensely, and a disproportionately large number of servers were walking around.  
  
No, wait, only some of them were servers; they had uniforms. The rest were just sort of milling about, occasionally approaching someone who was sitting alone. Most of the people milling about were women, and all of them were attractive; nearly all of the people sitting alone were men. The Doctor was nowhere to be seen.  
  
While Rose was examining the room, the woman she’d seen on the TARDIS monitor approached her.  
  
“Hello,” she said, extending a hand to shake. “I’m Morgan. Are you here with the Doctor?”  
  
“Rose. Yes, hello. I was trying to find him, actually.”  
  
"He's still in a session, and didn't leave any instructions about being disturbed. Is this an emergency?"  
  
"No, no, I just...need to talk to him, that's all."  
  
"I see. Well, you're welcome to sit and have a drink while you wait."  
  
"I haven't got any money..." She got the feeling they wouldn't accept pound notes here, and she'd left her wallet on the TARDIS anyway.  
  
"Oh, the Doctor has a great deal of credit with us. Certainly enough to cover a few drinks." Morgan led her to a table. "He's a valued client. We don't let just anyone park in the storeroom, you know."  
  
"Right." If there had been an opportune moment in that conversation to ask where she was and what exactly the Doctor was doing, Rose was certain it had passed her by.  
  
The drink list had "The Setting Sun" printed at the top, so at least Rose had a name for this place. She didn't recognize the units the money was in, but drink prices ranged from five whatever-they-were to over a hundred. She ordered one of the cheap ones.  
  
There was still no sign of the Doctor when her drink came, so she examined the rest of the menu while she sipped it. The back cover had an information blurb.  
  


  
_The Setting Sun has been Venus' premiere destination for companionship and erotic entertainment since its founding 15 standard years ago. It has won the Solar Sex Workers' Union award for best employer seven times, and this past year was named the top off-Earth provider of BDSM and kink services by the Adult Hobbyists' Association. Whatever your desires, we here at The Setting Sun are eager to help you explore and fulfill them._

When the words sank in, she dropped the menu like it had burned her. Oh God, she was in a brothel. The Doctor had waited until she was asleep and then parked the TARDIS in a brothel.

She shouldn't jump to conclusions, she told herself firmly. Maybe the Doctor was here to shut the place down or something...although that didn't quite match with what Morgan (the madame?) had said about him being a valued client and all. But the psychic paper could account for that, right?

As she took a final swig of her drink, she scanned the room one more time and nearly choked when she finally spotted the Doctor walking in from a hallway. He looked the same as ever, leather coat and daffy smile and everything, but he was chatting animatedly with a short and slender ginger woman.

A ginger woman who was wearing lace lingerie that did nothing to hide rubbed-red skin at her wrists and ankles, bite-shaped bruises on her neck, shoulder, thighs, and cheek, high-heeled shoes that Rose would have turned an ankle in, and not a stitch else...unless you counted the solid gold collar around her neck, which was attached to a gold chain that reached to the Doctor's hand.

Had the Doctor...bought a woman? Was she some sort of slave?

Rose shook her head. This was the Doctor. If he had bought that woman, it was to get her away from whoever had left those bruises on her. He probably had a plan for getting everybody out and then blowing the place up.

The Doctor and the woman walked to a table in the corner. He sat in the chair, but she sat on a cushion at his feet and rested her head against his knee, smiling up at him.

This place was just sick, Rose told herself. The strange tangle of feelings currently resting in her stomach like barbed wire was clearly because of how sick this place was.

She stood up and walked over to the Doctor's table. She could understand why he hadn't brought her to a place like this, but since she was here, he might need help bringing it down.

The trick, she'd learned from him, was to act casual. Act like you were supposed to be doing whatever you were doing. So she didn't expect him to show any outward surprise when she sat down across from him at the table, but he did a definite double-take.

"Rose?" he asked, disbelievingly. "What are you doing here?"

The tips of his ears were red, she noticed.

"It's okay, Doctor," she said in a low voice. "I already figured out it's not what it looks like. What's the plan? How can I help?"

"...ah." He leaned back and crossed his arms, drawing her attention to the golden chain that was still in his hand. "There's no plan, Rose. Say hi to Cindy. Cindy, this is Rose."

"Hello," said the woman sitting on the floor. She smiled nervously. "Doctor, I can leave if you two need to, ah, talk."

"I think that might be best," he said, handing her the end of the chain. "But keep the clock running. Won't be but a minute."

"All right," she said, and stood up with another nervous smile at Rose before walking off.

"...so?" Rose prompted once she was gone. "You're gonna bring this place down, right?"

The Doctor sighed. "Go back to the TARDIS, Rose."

"No way! Come on, I want to help get whoever put those bruises on Cindy." She shuddered. Love bites were one thing, but Cindy had teeth marks on her face. Rose couldn't even imagine it.

"Go back to the TARDIS. I don't need your help."

"Not going anywhere." Rose crossed her arms, mirroring him. "Tell me what we're doing."

"You're going back to the TARDIS and getting some more sleep, and it's none of your business what I'm doing," he said firmly.

"I don't care if it's dangerous--"

"It's not dangerous!" he snapped, loudly enough that some people at neighboring tables looked over at them. In a more even tone, he continued, "Nobody here's in danger, no one here needs rescuing, and no one here needs help."

"But then..." She couldn't quite process the implications of what he was saying. "If you're not rescuing her..."

"Then it is what it looks like," he finished for her. "Go back to the TARDIS."

"But...it looks like you, you bought her."

"I didn't buy her," the Doctor said acidically. "I hired her."

"To sit at your feet in lingerie and a leash?"

"Eh, I'm not into the whole public display thing, but it's what she likes." His face was pale and his ears were bright red, but he met her eyes stubbornly.

"So what do you like?" Rose wouldn't have dreamed of asking that question a few hours ago, but now...

"I gave her those bruises, Rose," the Doctor said with a sigh.

"What?" She jerked back like he had hit her.

"Go back to the TARDIS."

"I...okay." Feeling stunned, Rose made her way back to the closet that contained the ship, slipped inside, and headed to the galley. Mechanically, she made herself a cup of tea.

Half an hour later, she was still sitting at the counter with an untouched mug of now-cold tea when she heard the Doctor come in. He sat down next to her, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him.

"I'm sorry that happened," he told her. "You usually sleep much longer."

"So the problem's that I caught you?" she asked. "Not...not what you did to that poor girl?"

"That 'poor girl' is a couple thousand credits richer than she was yesterday because of me."

"Oh, so that makes it okay then?" Rose snapped. "For you to hurt her like that? She probably has to give it all to a pimp or something anyway."

The Doctor actually laughed.

"I'd like to see a pimp try to take money from one of the Setting Sun’s girls," he said. "He wouldn't know what hit him. Cindy works there of her own free will, Rose."

"Why would anyone do that?"

"Why did you work in a shop?"

"Needed the money," Rose said. "And maybe I had to work long hours, and maybe the customers were rude sometimes, but I never went home black and blue! And I never got--"

She couldn't get the word out, the word that started with "r" and meant that the Doctor wasn't actually the most wonderful man she'd ever met, wasn't actually "better than that" or better than anything, was, in fact, a monster.

Fat, hot tears ran down her cheeks.

"Rose," he said, sounding concerned. "Why are you crying?"

"I thought you were so good," she said.

"And this means I'm not.”

She couldn't speak, couldn't even nod.

"Do you want to go home?" he asked.

"No," she said, before she could even really process the question. "No...but I think maybe I...maybe I have to."

The Doctor closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then nodded once.

"Any time you say," he said. "I'd never make you do anything you don't want to do. You know that, right? Never."

"Why not?" she asked. "What makes me different from Cindy?"

"Nothing," he said, sounding confused. “Well, lots of things, but I wouldn’t ever make her do anything she didn’t want to either.”

"But you hurt her."

"Rose, she's a professional submissive. That's her job, that's what she decided to do."

"Because it was that or starve, I bet."

"Course not. This is a good time to be living on Venus; social safety net’s strong. And she works a few evenings a week and makes enough to put herself through school. She's studying to be an opera singer."

"How'd you know that?"

"Asked her, didn’t I. Seen her a couple times before, and we always have dinner together after, because it can get a bit...intense...and I don't want her to lose money because she has to take a break from seeing clients."

Rose shook her head. "It doesn’t make sense."

"I promise you, Rose, I didn't do a thing to that girl she didn't agree to. Never have, never will." He sighed. "If you think I'm a monster, fine, but at least do it for the right reasons. Not for Cindy."

He sounded old and tired, and she moved to rest her head on his shoulder before she remembered Cindy resting against his knee and jerked away.

"You still want to go home, then?" he asked.

"I think I need to sleep on it."

"Fine," he said, and nodded. "That's fine. I'll be in the console room when you've decided."


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course Rose doesn't get a chance to process things before she and the Doctor are sucked into an adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for the idea of an aerial colony on Venus goes to NASA. No, seriously: <http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20030022668.pdf>

Alone in the galley, Rose poured out her cold tea and made herself another cup. She wished she could look at a clock. Normally she liked the timelessness of the TARDIS (especially the lack of alarm clocks), but right now she felt strangely ungrounded. It sort of felt like the middle of the night and sort of felt like morning, and she had the feeling that it was evening where they were parked, although she didn’t remember any windows.  
  
Of course there weren’t any windows. No one would want anyone to look in and see them there.  
  
She had just about decided to go back to her room and try to get back to sleep when the Doctor came back in, looking wary.  
  
“Know I said I’d wait for you in the console room, but there’s an emergency going on and they need my help. You don’t need to come with, just wanted you to know that’s where I’ll be.”  
  
“Course I’m coming with,” she said, surprising herself. She’d thought that she was considering going home, but when it came down to it, there wasn’t really a choice, was there? “You’re useless without me.”  
  
“You’re sure?” he asked, and when she nodded, he grinned. “Fantastic. Let’s get moving then.”  
  
Rose downed her tea, jumped to her feet, and reflexively took the Doctor’s hand. When she realized what she’d done, she considered dropping it, but...holding his hand still felt right.  
  
“Don’t know if you gathered, but we’re in a human colony on Venus, couple centuries ahead of you,” he told her as they walked to the doors. “Beautiful piece of engineering. Long as you’re not afraid of heights, anyway.”  
  
“Why’s that, then?” she asked.  
  
“Didn’t look out the window, did you?” he asked with a grin.  
  
“I don’t think I saw any.” It was like he didn’t even realize he’d been in a shameful place, a place where people would want to hide. “So what’s the emergency, anyway?”  
  
“Something to do with the power,” he said, his grin fading. “I didn’t get all the details. Wanted to make sure I warned you before I got pulled into things.”  
  
“Thanks,” she said, feeling strangely awkward. He wasn’t usually so conscientious...or at least, not so she noticed. Now that she thought about it, though, they did tend to end up back at the TARDIS right when she was getting sleepy more often than not, and there was always a place to get food when she was hungry, so long as they weren’t being held captive at the time.  
  
It was sort of strange, realizing the amount of calculation he must put into keeping her comfortable. Sort of scary, too, like when she’d realized on Platform One how completely dependent she was on this man, this alien stranger.  
  
He wasn’t a stranger any more, though. He’d met her mum and even her dad, he’d held her when she’d cried and she’d lost count of the times he’d saved her life. Maybe he could manipulate her if he wanted to, maybe he even had, but he couldn’t help being clever, and he didn’t do anything with all that cleverness but try to keep her happy and try to help people.  
  
Feeling a little better about things, she followed the Doctor out the door of the TARDIS and into the Setting Sun. Her mood was soured considerably when she realized that both Morgan and Cindy were waiting for them. Cindy had changed into jeans and a vest top and bandaged her wrists, but the dark shapes of bite marks were still visible on her face and neck.  
  
Seeing those marks with the Doctor solidly beside her and his cool, firm hand in hers suddenly led Rose to imagine it was herself lying there helpless, maybe tied down even, with the Doctor’s hard body pressing down on her, unable to resist him as he did whatever he wanted...and apparently, when the Doctor did whatever he wanted, it left marks.  
  
He glanced at her, his face unreadable, and she pulled her hand away.  
  
Cindy looked surprised to see her, and a bit nervous. It almost looked like she’d been moving to hug the Doctor when she’d noticed Rose, and she stopped abruptly, shoving her hands into her trouser pockets.  
  
“It started just after you left,” Morgan told the Doctor, leading their little group out of the storeroom. “Well, I suppose it started a good deal before that, but we weren’t informed until just after you left. I’m surprised we couldn’t hear the engineers screaming from down here, frankly.”  
  
“Your soundproofing’s too good,” he said, grinning at her.  
  
“Yes, I hear you’ve tested it pretty thoroughly for us,” she said, smiling back. Cindy giggled. “Anyway, they’ve cut off all non-essential power, which has actually been surprisingly good for business.”  
  
The large room was the same as before, but the atmosphere was entirely changed. Instead of intimate duos talking softly, there was a roar of noise; the place was packed, and everyone but the employees seemed to be either doing their best to get drunk as quickly as possible, desperately finding someone to snog, or barely keeping it together.  
  
“Aren’t those fancy floor lights non-essential?” Rose asked.  
  
“Those don’t use any power,” the Doctor said. “See for yourself.”  
  
Rose walked over to one of the glass strips in the floor and looked down.  
  
At first she thought the glass had been painted a cloudy yellow, but the clouds seemed to be moving...and they looked strangely far away...  
  
She suddenly remembered what the Doctor had said about being afraid of heights, and felt her perspective shift, just like the day he told her he could feel the Earth move.  
  
“Are we flying?” she asked.  
  
“Hovering, more like,” the Doctor said, grinning as proudly as if he had designed it himself. “The whole colony floats up above the cloud layer of Venus’ atmosphere, moving just fast enough to stay on the day side. Which isn’t too hard, since a day on Venus is a couple hundred times as long as a day on Earth. We’re on the bottom floor, but there are hundreds above us.”  
  
“Yes, and most of them only have minimal lighting now,” Morgan cut in. “And there’ll be less hovering and more falling in the near future if you can’t help us get the solar cells back online. Come on! We need to get topside before they start shutting down the lifts.”  
  
They left the Setting Sun and entered a much more space-station-looking corridor, with a metal floor and plastic walls. There were light fixtures set in the ceiling, but only a few of them were on.  
  
“Why don’t they have floor windows out here?” Rose asked.  
  
“Because they don’t have any imagination,” Morgan said, rolling her eyes. “I got them installed special when we opened the Setting Sun. Nobody else even wanted to be on the bottom floor; it’s mostly industrial down here. Which gives us a little privacy, as an extra bonus.”  
  
She led them to the lift, and let out a sigh of relief when the door opened. Cindy managed to position herself on the other side of the Doctor from Rose when they got on...almost like she was hiding behind him. Rose didn’t know what to do with her hands. She felt to uncomfortable to hold the Doctor’s, and she would have put them in her pockets, but then she’d be mirroring Cindy. For lack of anything better to occupy them, she toyed with her hair.  
  
“How did you know the Doctor could help, anyway?” Rose asked as they ascended. “Usually we have to convince people to listen to us.”  
  
“Oh, you’ll still have to do that up top,” Morgan said. “But he helped us years back, when the House had just opened. People were looking through the windows and going mad.”  
  
“What, really?”  
  
“Not really mad,” the Doctor corrected. “There’s a kind of semi-sentient life form that lives in the clouds down below. They communicate telepathically--not full communication, just ‘get out of my territory’ and ‘there’s food here’ and ‘you seem fit,’ animal type communication--and they were brushing up against the minds of the people who looked out the window. Got to know what you’re doing to share thoughts with an alien, and this lot didn’t.”  
  
“How’d you fix it?” Rose asked.  
  
“He did something to the windows that let them block telepathy but still let in light,” Cindy said, smiling at him fondly. “And he fixed up the minds of everyone who’d been affected. I wasn’t working yet, but we’ve all heard the story. He saved the business.”  
  
“Good for the business,” Rose muttered. She didn’t like the way that Cindy was looking at the Doctor...although she had to admit, the more time she spent around the ginger woman, the less likely it seemed that the Doctor had actually done anything horrid to her, despite the bruises.  
  
“And he’s never tried to use that to get a freebie,” Cindy continued. “Never pays in money, but he always pays. This time it was a gorgeous pendant--what was that stone called, Doctor?”  
  
“Sphalerite,” the Doctor said, and Rose stiffened. About a week ago, they’d rescued some sort of alien princess, and her family had given them necklaces as a reward, both with fire-orange gems the Doctor had identified as sphalerite. She’d teased him about how lovely it looked on him, and he’d rolled his eyes at her, but his fingers had been gentle when he fastened the clasp at the back of her neck for her. Hers was sitting on her dresser. Apparently the Doctor’s belonged to Cindy now.  
  
No wonder she was looking at him like that. They probably taught you that look, so you could use it to get more money or jewelry or whatever.  
  
Why would the Doctor even want to sleep with someone like that? Someone who was just using him to get things? Didn’t he realize he didn’t need to resort to that?  
  
Unless...unless it really did have to involve all those bruises, for him.  
  
The lift came to a stop and opened onto a park. Well, maybe more a farm than a park, Rose realized, noticing how many of the plants were food-bearing. The light was strange and yellow, and she realized they were under a clear dome, with the pale fog of the upper atmosphere of Venus visible all around.  
  
The park was crowded with nervous people, and more were coming out of other lifts all the time. There was a definite feeling of tension in the air.  
  
“Control center’s in the middle,” Morgan said, and led their little group towards a white cylindrical building that rose above the fruit trees to meet to apex of the dome. Rose wondered if the crowds parted for her because they knew who she was or because she looked like she knew where she was going.  
  
There was a crowd of people around the door to the control center, held back (though not physically, at least not yet) by a semicircle of serious-faced people in uniform.  
  
“Officer Henderson,” Morgan said to the one who appeared to be in charge.  
  
“Ms. De Santo,” Officer Henderson replied coldly. “Go home. Everything is under control here.”  
  
“If everything were under control, the lights would be on. Let us through.”  
  
“While I have nothing but respect for your business acumen, Ms. De Santo--”  
  
“Which of course is why you’ve invasively verified that I’m running my business within legal parameters five times within the last--”  
  
“If I may continue?” He set his jaw. “The problem does not lie within your...area of expertise. Go home.”  
  
“Obviously not. That’s why I brought an expert.” She indicated the Doctor, who waved.  
  
“You’re an expert on solar panels?” Officer Henderson asked skeptically.  
  
“That’s me!” the Doctor said, grinning and holding out the psychic paper.  
  
“Fine, you can go in. But these three--” he visibly swallowed a word. “These three women are staying outside.”  
  
“Nope. She’s with me,” he said, pointing a thumb at Rose. “I’ll need her help.”  
  
“Fine, fine,” the officer said, waving them both through.  
  
Rose smiled at the Doctor, wanting to hold his hand but too uncomfortably aware of the way the guard had misunderstood their relationship to do it.  
  
“Be back in a bit,” he said cheerfully to Morgan and Cindy, and he and Rose walked into the control center.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose has a chat with Cindy while they and the Doctor try to save the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this chapter will clear some things up!

“So all the readings are showing that there’s something on the outside of the solar panels blocking the light,” the Doctor said some time later, after he’d convinced the officials and engineers inside the control center to let him help.

“Right, but there can’t be. The entire dome is made of transparent solar cells. You can just look and see that there’s nothing on them.”

“Course you can’t,” the Doctor scoffed. “All you can see is that whatever’s blocking the ultraviolet light the panels need isn’t also blocking the visible spectrum.”

The room became dead silent.

“Are you saying that something invisible is on the outside of the dome?”

“No, your instruments are saying that. But unless you’ve got a camera that can see ultraviolet--”

“It’d be useless, the dome would be completely opaque to it under normal circumstances.”

“Then someone needs to go outside and check,” the Doctor concluded. “So. Where do you keep the spacesuits?”

“They’re down a floor,” a junior technician said. “We should take the maintenance stairs--the lifts are powered down now.”

“Lead on, then,” the Doctor said, and the three of them filed out of the control room, leaving the technician’s superiors arguing in their wake.

Outside, there was chaos. Morgan had disappeared--no, Rose saw, she was actually in the thick of the mess, apparently working to keep people calm. Well, she would have to have pretty good people skills, wouldn’t she.

Cindy was still waiting for them, and her face lit up with hope when she saw them come out.

“Have you figured out the problem?” she asked the Doctor.

“Figured out how to figure it out,” he told her. “We’re headed for an airlock. I’ll be taking a look outside.”

“What, outside outside?” she asked, falling into step with them. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Less dangerous than waiting for the air filters to stop working,” he said cheerfully.

“We do this sort of thing all the time,” Rose informed her. “Saving places and rescuing people and all.”

The service stairs were unlit, but the technician, who introduced himself as Phil, had brought a torch with him. The stairs had that odd, unpleasant smell that Rose had always associated with underused stairwells; apparently some things didn’t change. The group’s footsteps echoed on the textured plastic.

The airlock was just outside the stairwell, with lots of warning signs around it. Despite the signs, the area was a mess--ripped-off locker doors littered the floor.

“Afraid this might’ve happened,” the Doctor said. “Someone’s nicked the spacesuits.”

“What? Why would they do that?” Phil asked, bewildered. “Those suits aren’t rated for the surface. If we lose the power, we’re going to fall, not just run out of air.”

“Scared people aren’t usually good at thinking things through,” the Doctor said. “Whoever took these probably wasn’t weighing the benefits of death by suffocation against death by pressure and heat and acid.”

“I think there’s still one left,” Rose said, pulling it out of a locker. “Dunno how they missed it, but I think it’s got all the pieces.”

“All but the most important piece,” Phil said. “Look, the external air supply is gone. They must’ve just taken that. You can’t go more than a few minutes with just the air in the suit. It’s worthless.”

“A human can’t go more than a few minutes on just that much air,” the Doctor said. “I can. Help me on with the suit, would you, Rose?”

Any other day, she would have been quietly excited about the chance to touch the Doctor so much, adding a little more fuel to that crush. Today, it felt hideously awkward.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Phil protested while Rose and the Doctor struggled with the clunky garment. “You’ll suffocate and fall to the surface with our last spacesuit.”

“He’s not human,” Cindy said. “If he says he can do it, he can do it.”

“Won’t be able to talk, though,” the Doctor said, pulling on the reinforced gloves. “Need air for that.”

He got the helmet on and sealed, and Phil operated the airlock. Then it was just the three of them, unable to communicate with the Doctor or even see what he was doing.

“He’ll be able to get back in, right?” Rose asked.

“Yes, there’s a lever on the outside of the airlock,” Phil said. “He’ll have to knock on the inner door to get me to equalize it and let him the rest of the way in, but that should be no problem. Assuming he really can go without an oxygen supply for as long as he says.”

The three of them were quiet and restless for a while. Rose paced the length of the dark corridor, Phil stayed close to the door, and Cindy sat on the floor with her back against the wall.

It had been harder to imagine the Doctor doing anything horrid when he’d been right there, being his normal self. It was much easier in the dark, in the quiet, looking at the bandages around Cindy’s wrists and the way she kept rubbing at the bruise on her cheek.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Rose asked her when the silence got to be too much.

“What? Oh--well, yes,” Cindy said, moving her hand away from her face. Rose went over and sat next to her.

“Listen,” she said quietly, “Do you need help?”

“What?” Cindy looked startled. “Help with what?”

“With, you know, getting out of here.” Rose could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She didn’t want to have to try to sneak Cindy past the Doctor, but if she needed to--if the Doctor really wasn’t as good as he’d always seemed--she’d do it.

“How many people can fit on the Doctor’s ship?” Cindy asked. “He said it was bigger on the inside, but I don’t know how big. Will he be able to evacuate the city, if he can’t get the power back on?”

“What?” Rose blinked. “No, no, he’s going to get the power back on, I’m sure of it. We do this sort of thing all the time. I was wondering about, you know, you. I could help you get somewhere that people won’t hurt you.”

“What?” Cindy asked, looking at Rose like she was mad.

“It’ll be tricky, sneaking past the Doctor, but I’m sure I can do it,” Rose said. “If we can figure out a way back down to the TARDIS while he’s still outside--”

Cindy stood and backed away from Rose.

“Are you serious?” she asked, loudly enough that Phil looked over. “He’s out there right now risking his life to save me and my family and friends and everyone in this city, and you think I need to be rescued from him?”

“I don’t know what to think!” Rose said, jumping to her feet as well. “I thought he was so good, but seeing him with you--”

“Well I’m sorry that he’s cheating on you, but that doesn’t mean I need to be rescued from him! He’s one of the best clients I’ve had, goes above and beyond to make sure I’m comfortable, and now he’s saving my life and I won’t hear a word against him, you hear me?”

“He’s not...we’re not together,” Rose said. “He’s not cheating on me. I just...when I saw those bruises, and, and he told me he’d put them there…”

She could feel her face heating up, could feel tears collecting in her eyes, and angrily wiped them away.

“Oh, good,” Cindy said, sounding relieved. “I mean, I’m sorry that you’re hurting, but...well, it’s silly, but I like the Doctor. It was upsetting, thinking he’d been betraying someone else by being with me.”

“Didn’t think you’d care,” Rose said, sitting back down with her back to the wall. “Job like yours, and all.”

“Oh, so first I needed to be rescued and now I’m heartless?” Cindy asked, sounding amused. She sat next to Rose--not too close, but there.

“I don’t know,” Rose said. “It’s been a really confusing day.”

“Well, if it helps you make sense of things, I’m a masochist. I’d be getting bruised up by sex even if it wasn’t my job. You know, for fun. So you can at least decide I’m a horrible person instead of a helpless victim, if that helps.”

“I’m sure you’re not a horrible person,” Rose said. “Sort of be easier if you were, though.”

“Oh?” Cindy peered at Rose in the near-darkness. “So you’re not together, but you’d like to be. Is that it?”

“I don’t know,” Rose muttered. “Wasn’t sure he was even interested in, you know...I mean, he is an alien.”

“Well, he’s--” Cindy started, then stopped. “I probably shouldn’t say anything. Confidentiality, and all.”

“But did you, you know, have sex with him? Or was it all just...weird stuff?” Rose couldn’t believe she was having this conversation, but she needed to know.

“I don’t know if I should say.” Cindy looked conflicted. “It’s his decision what to tell you.”

“Don’t I at least get to know whether I need to be worried about diseases and things? If he and I do get together, I mean.”

“Diseases?” Cindy laughed. “We’ve got state-of-the-art microbial detectors at the Setting Sun. I promise, regardless of what bodily fluids ended up where, there was no transmission of disease.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

“You’re telling me.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Shouldn’t he be back by now?” Rose asked eventually.

“I don’t know. How long can he hold his breath?” Cindy asked.

“No idea,” Rose admitted. “It’s never come up before.”

“Well, if he was a human, he’d be dead by now,” Phil said. Rose jumped a bit, having forgotten he was there.

“Yeah, I don’t think he’d just claim to need less air and then walk to his death, so that’s not really helpful,” Cindy said.

“People have overestimated their abilities before,” Phil said.

“If there’s something else you need to be doing, go do it,” Rose said. “I’ll open the door when he knocks.”

“I didn’t say that,” Phil said. “Just because I’m worrying about whether or not I’m going to die on the surface of Venus instead of sitting about having relationship drama doesn’t mean I don’t want to help.”

“Some people turn into right arses when they’re scared,” Rose commented to Cindy.

“Some people are right arses to start with,” Cindy said.

There was a hollow, booming knock at the door to the airlock. Phil stopped glaring at Rose and Cindy to work the controls.

“We have to wait for a moment while it vents out the Venusian atmosphere and pumps in our mix,” Phil said. “I really hope he’s found the problem. This is all draining power.”

Soon, the door opened with a pneumatic hiss, revealing the spacesuited form of the Doctor. He took off his helmet and coughed, leaning forward to rest his hands on his knees for a moment. Rose and Cindy both rushed forward, but Rose got there first, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“I’m all right,” he managed after a moment. “Stayed out a bit too long, but I’m fine.”

“Did you figure it out?” Phil asked. “What’s causing the problem?”

“Eggs,” the Doctor said.

“Ex? Ex what?” Phil asked.

“No, eggs. The things that live in the clouds have been laying eggs all over your dome. The layer only just got thick enough to cause a problem.” The Doctor looked grim. “And if we can’t figure out a way to shift them, they’re going to take the entire city of Third Orleans down to the surface.”


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose, Cindy, and the Doctor work together to come up with a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, been a while since I posted. Been going through some Life Stuff, but I do plan to finish all my WIPs (and I have more ideas to start at some point. XD)

Everyone began to talk at once.  
  
“Are you mad? Nothing lives on Venus,” Phil said.  
  
“But why can’t we see the eggs?” Cindy asked. “Or the creatures laying them?”  
  
“Third Orleans, seriously?” Rose asked.  
  
“One at a time!” the Doctor snapped, and the rest fell silent. “Yes, Phil, something does live on Venus. You don’t know about them because they’re transparent to light in the visible spectrum--that’s why you can’t see the eggs, Cindy. And yes, Rose, city’s named Third Orleans. Haven’t really had a chance to tell you much about it, sorry.”  
  
“So what are we going to do?” Cindy asked. “Can we scrape the eggs off, or something?”  
  
“Not a chance,” the Doctor said grimly. “The stuff they’re stuck on with can resist conditions in the lower atmosphere of Venus--acid, wind, temperature, pressure. I was out there so long trying to pry one off, but nothing doing.”  
  
“Maybe we could freeze them off?” Rose suggested. “Since they’re suited to Venus, and all.”  
  
“Might be able to, if there was a way to get cold air out there. Station wasn’t built with anything like that, though, and there’s no time to rig something up.” He began to pace. “Vacuum might work, but it’d do at least as much damage to the station as to the eggs, if we could even get it up high enough.”  
  
“But you’ll be able to think of something, right?” Cindy asked. Her face was pale. “You save places all the time, Rose said.”  
  
“You’re all mad,” Phil announced. “I’m going back upstairs.”  
  
“Bye then,” the Doctor said. “Cindy, you have my word that I will do everything I can to save this city.”  
  
“Can you talk to the creatures?” Rose asked. “Maybe get them to move their eggs?”  
  
“They’re just animals,” the Doctor said. “Not intelligent enough to understand. They thought this was just a convenient mountaintop, high enough to be out of the worst of the Venusian weather. Perfect for laying eggs on.”  
  
“All right, so what other things do they not get on Venus?” Rose asked. “Cold and low pressure, but we can’t make either of those...what else?”  
  
“Plenty of acids, but nothing on the other end of the PH scale...can’t think what on board might work for that, though. Need a hell of a lot of baking soda.”  
  
“Doctor, the creatures communicate with telepathy, right?” Cindy asked. “Why telepathy and not sound?”  
  
“Too loud. The winds out there are moving as fast as Earth’s jet stream, and they only get faster as you go lower. Can’t hear a thing.”  
  
“Damn, there goes my idea.”  
  
“Why, what was it?” the Doctor asked.  
  
“Well, you know that old bit with a singer breaking glass with her voice? I actually managed it a few weeks back, with some audio amplifiers. I thought maybe, if the eggs weren’t used to sound and if they’re all around the same size…”  
  
“They’re used to one unvarying sound, though!” the Doctor said. “And they’re all the same size and shape. If we rig up a connection between the TARDIS sound system and the dome, and then send a sound through at the right frequency, we might be able to resonate them right off!”  
  
“Will that be safe for the people on the top floor?” Rose asked.  
  
“Probably not. Cindy, call Morgan, would you? Tell her to get everybody out from under the dome, if she can.”  
  
Cindy pulled out what Rose assumed was a phone, although it looked more like a makeup compact, and stepped away to talk quietly into it.  
  
“How are you doing?” the Doctor asked quietly.  
  
Rose looked up at him, startled. It wasn’t a question he generally asked--maybe if she’d just gotten out of a near-death situation, but not when there clearly wasn’t a scratch on her.  
  
But she hadn’t been this unsure of him since, well, ever. Not even when they’d just met, or when they’d had that fight over her saving her dad. She’d never felt like he might not be safe until tonight, and he knew it.  
  
“Better,” she said. “I had a talk with Cindy, while you were outside. She cleared up a few things. Nothing, um, nothing too private. Just that she really does like you, and all.”  
  
“Oh, good.” He smiled, looking relieved.  
  
“What, didn’t you know she really does like you?”  
  
“Course I do. I was just worried you might not believe her.”  
  
“She said she was upset at first because she thought you were, well, stepping out on me, and I could tell she was glad to hear you weren’t,” Rose said. “I didn’t expect it.”  
  
“Oh.” The Doctor shuffled awkwardly, and crossed his arms. Rose thought his eyes looked sad. “Good you set her straight, then.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Morgan’s going to do her best,” Cindy said, rejoining them. “So, how are we going to get down to the TARDIS? They’ve powered off the lifts.  
  
“Ever wanted to go skydiving?” the Doctor asked, grinning.  
  
The nearest lift was a few minutes’ walk away. The Doctor explained as they went.  
  
“I can’t turn the lifts back on from here,” he said. “But what I can do is have one drop all the way to the bottom, then rig up a harness give us a nice controlled descent along the shaft.”  
  
“And that’s safe?” Cindy asked doubtfully.  
  
“At least as safe as houses that are falling to the surface of Venus,” the Doctor said cheerfully.  
  
“He’s just trying to be impressive,” Rose said. “Ignore him. I’ve survived travelling with him for months. He generally knows what he’s doing.”  
  
“Generally!?” the Doctor asked indignantly.  
  
When they reached the lift, the Doctor sonicked the door open and verified that the lift was on the floor above them, so there would be a nice, clear drop to the bottom, far off in the darkness.  
  
“How far down is it?” Rose asked.  
  
“No idea,” the Doctor said cheerfully, pulling clips out of his pocket and wrestling with the cable.  
  
“Two hundred and eighty floors,” Cindy said. “Or two seventy-nine, I suppose, since we’re one from the top.”  
  
“There you go, then. I’ll just count them as we go.” The Doctor gave them a manic grin.  
  
They ended up in a sort of triple-tandem arrangement, with the Doctor at the bottom controlling their rate of descent--which was far too fast for Rose to keep track of the number of floors, particularly with Cindy’s hands digging into her shoulders like talons. It was too dark for her to even see the Doctor’s head in front of her.  
  
“Two hundred seventy-nine!” the Doctor announced when they finally came to a stop. “Everyone all right? Limbs still attached?”  
  
“I’m fine,” Rose said, unclipping herself from the cable. She could feel Cindy trembling against her. “Just you get the door open.”  
  
She managed to get Cindy unhooked from the cable by feel, and rubbed the other girl’s back, saying things she hoped were soothing.  
  
“Hey, now, you’re safe. We’re on the ground--er, the first floor. Everything’s fine.”  
  
“I know,” Cindy said, her voice shaky. “I’m all right. Just...the dark, and the speed, and all. It got to me a bit.”  
  
“You’re not used to it, is all,” Rose said. “My first trip out, just being in a room full of aliens was enough to freak me out! You’re doing fine.”  
  
“Door’s open,” came the Doctor’s gruff voice in the dark. “Over this way.”  
  
There weren’t even emergency lights on in the hall, but the Doctor seemed to know where he was going. He led both Rose and Cindy by the hand, which Rose almost entirely managed to avoid resenting.  
  
They could hear the Setting Sun before it got light enough for Rose to see her hand in front of her face. She braced herself to see chaos inside--she’d seen a couple of panicked mobs in her time with the Doctor, and they were always ugly--but things were much more orderly than she’d expected. It was too crowded for everyone to sit at a table, but someone had piled pillows along the walls so that people could sit down there. Food and drinks were going around, money was changing hands, and there was a small but steady trickle of traffic in and out of the back rooms.  
  
Cindy unlocked the door to the linen closet where the TARDIS was being stored.  
  
“So it’s bigger on the inside, right?” she asked, looking skeptically at the wooden exterior.  
  
“You haven’t been inside?” Rose asked.  
  
“There hasn’t been a reason to,” she said. “But I’ve always been curious.”  
  
“You should’ve said,” the Doctor said. “I would’ve shown you around.”  
  
“Didn’t want you to think I was trying to turn things into something they’re not,” Cindy said. “Morgan would have my ass if I scared you off.”  
  
“Well, you can see it now,” the Doctor said, and opened the door. “Rose, I need you to get the audio amplifier from the third supply room. Should be two lefts, a right, third door on your left, thing that looks like a keyboard hooked up to a bullhorn, got it?”  
  
“Got it,” Rose said, and rushed off, unable to hide her smile at Cindy’s open-mouthed awe.  
  
She was used to following the Doctor’s weird directions (and thought maybe the TARDIS helped her along), so she found the storeroom with no trouble. The audio amplifier was more difficult; it looked more like a phonograph stuck on top of a laptop to her, and it was half-hidden between a shelf of vinyl records and a box of little blue pyramids (alien music storage, she assumed), but she found it and got it back to the control room before Cindy’s shock had worn off.  
  
“I mean, I thought you meant a _bit_ bigger, not…” her voice trailed off. “Your species must be _so_ far ahead of ours!”  
  
“Humans’re more fun,” the Doctor said with a grin that Rose noted didn’t reach his eyes. “Give that here, Rose, I need to wire it to the console.”  
  
Rose helped him get the device into place, laying a sympathetic hand on his for a moment in the process. He gave her a quick smile, but didn’t stop working.  
  
“How many people live here?” Cindy asked.  
  
“Just me and the Doctor,” Rose said.  
  
“You have this whole place to yourselves?” she asked incredulously. “Are your people post-scarcity or something?”  
  
“Post a lot of things,” the Doctor muttered. “Can we keep the chat to a minimum while I’m working, please?”  
  
Cindy looked hurt, but nodded.  
  
“Don’t mind him,” Rose told her quietly. She thought about telling Cindy why the Doctor’s people were a sore subject, but after what the other woman had said about confidentiality, decided it wouldn’t be appreciated.  
  
“I can handle a few harsh words from someone who’s saving my life,” Cindy replied in a whisper. “Should we keep out of the way? I’d love it if you’d show me around--”  
  
“Rose, I need the number four spanner,” the Doctor said brusquely.  
  
“He’s a bit of a git, but it’s for a good cause,” Rose said to Cindy as she fetched the requested tool.  
  
“Better than the opposite, I suppose,” Cindy said.  
  
“Thank you, Rose,” the Doctor said with exaggerated politeness when she handed him the spanner. She rolled her eyes at him, and he winked.


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter already? Yep, and we're on the home stretch for this story.

“You’re sure you’ve got it?” the Doctor asked Rose for the third time.  
  
“I’ve got it,” she said. “Wait one minute after you’ve left the TARDIS with the speaker thing--”  
  
“The audio amplifier.”  
  
“The _audio amplifier_ , then,” she repeated. “Then I press the red button, and then I start sliding the dial up slowly. If I’ve gotten to the top and Cindy hasn’t let me know they’re breaking, I go back to the center and start sliding it down.”  
  
“It’s got to be slow, but not too slow--”  
  
“I get it!” she said. “Go on, get that spacesuit back on.”  
  
The Doctor had to be the one to go outside the TARDIS’s force field with the audio emitter, because the only spacesuit they had still didn’t have an air tank attached. (When she’d asked him why he didn’t have a spacesuit on the TARDIS, he gave her a long lecture about how only humans were mad enough to colonize a planet like Venus, and how gear designed for vacuum would be gone in an instant in Venus’ atmosphere. She asked whether he had a spacesuit for vacuum, then, and he’d quickly changed the subject.)  
  
That meant Rose would be on the controls, and Cindy would be poking her head out the door (but within the force field) to see whether or not it was working. Once they found the right frequency to shake off the eggs, the day would be saved without any of the Venusians (or should it be Third Orleanians?) even knowing what had happened.  
  
Assuming that Morgan had gotten everyone out from under the dome. And assuming that the dome itself didn’t break. And assuming that the resonant frequency of the eggs was within the range the Doctor’s device could produce.  
  
Rose figured that if the plan had actually seemed like a sure thing, it would have been certain to go wrong. So they were probably all right.  
  
The Doctor set everything up, suited up, and headed out the door with a wave--no comms, of course. Cindy took up her position by the open door.  
  
“Oh, weird,” she said. “From this side I can sort of see the eggs. Or at least, the inside of the dome looks all distorted. Looks like Morgan managed to evacuate everyone, though.”  
  
“Good on her,” Rose said. “Let me know when the Doctor’s in place.”  
  
“I’m not sure...it looks like...oh! There, he’s waved at me. I think you can go ahead.”  
  
Rose pressed the red button. They were shielded from the sound inside the TARDIS, the same way they were shielded from Venus’ deadly atmosphere, but she imagined she could feel it in her bones.  
  
“Anything?” she asked Cindy.  
  
“I don’t think so. Go higher.”  
  
Rose began to slowly turn the dial to the right.  
  
“Still nothing...still nothing…” Cindy said. “Or at least, I don’t think it’s working yet, it’s gotten a bit...oh. Um, Rose, do you know anything about blocking out telepathy?” Her voice had raised to a near-shout, despite the quiet on board the ship.  
  
“What? No,” Rose said, still steadily turning the dial. “Why would I?”  
  
“It’s the parents,” Cindy shouted. “The ones that laid the eggs. They’re here, and it’s like they’re _screaming_ in my head!”  
  
“Screaming...screaming words?” Rose asked, trying to think. “Maybe we can explain the situation to them…”  
  
“No!” Cindy yelled, then took a deep breath and continued in a more normal volume, although her voice sounded strained. “No, it’s like the Doctor said. Just--animal things. Like a dog barking.”  
  
“Well, they can’t get on the TARDIS,” Rose said.  
  
“I know, but they’re in my _head_ ,” Cindy said. “Urgh...I can handle it. Just keep turning the dial.”  
  
Chewing on her lip with worry, Rose continued to turn the dial up. She could hear Cindy muttering something to herself, but couldn’t make out any words.  
  
“That’s the highest it goes,” she said eventually. “Anything?”  
  
“No, nothing,” Cindy said. “Go back to the middle and try the lower settings.”  
  
“Are they still after you?” Rose asked. “They’re not hurting the Doctor, are they?”  
  
“They’re still in my head,” Cindy confirmed through gritted teeth. “But I’m dealing with it. I don’t know if the Doctor can hear them or not, but I don’t think they’re physically anywhere nearby, so he doesn’t have to fight them off or anything.”  
  
Rose twisted the knob back down to the middle position, then began slowly turning it down farther.  
  
“Stop!” Cindy yelled after a moment. “Rose, stop, something’s happening!”  
  
“What?” Rose asked, stopping the dial. “Is it working?”  
  
“It’s hard to tell, but something’s...yes! Yes, they’re breaking up! Just keep the dial right--ow!”  
  
Rose looked up at Cindy’s exclamation, just in time to see the smaller girl pass out and fall halfway out of the TARDIS. Her legs and hips were inside the door, but her torso was dangling in midair. There was the force field, but the Doctor had walked right through it; something about selective permeability that Rose didn’t understand. If Cindy fell the rest of the way, she could very well keep falling through the acid clouds until her charred body hit the surface.  
  
Leaving the dial in position, Rose rushed over to pull her back inside--but just a glimpse out the door of the TARDIS sent her reeling, clapping her hands to her ears to keep out a sound that wasn’t a sound. She didn’t know how Cindy had managed to look out there for so long. They were _screaming_.  
  
She could try to get over to Cindy and pull her in by keeping her eyes on the grating, but if she glanced the wrong way, they could both be unconscious. Thinking quickly, she grabbed a long, sturdy cable that had been discarded in the effort to adapt the audio amplifier for its current task, and looped one end around her waist, tying the other end to the grating. It wouldn’t be comfortable to dangle from her waist while Venusian sky-monsters screamed in her brain, but the Doctor could probably fix her, and if she didn’t make sure everything was working right, Cindy could fall.  
  
With the cable securely around her waist, Rose crawled over to where Cindy’s legs lay on the grating, keeping her eyes firmly down. She had to glance up once to get herself moving in the right direction, and if anything, the sound was even worse; she clung to the grating with her eyes screwed shut for a moment, tasting bile.  
  
Finally she reached Cindy’s feet. Before doing anything else, she tied another loop of the cable around one of Cindy’s ankles, just in case she messed up. Then she began the difficult process of crawling backwards while dragging an unconscious person.  
  
Rose could feel Cindy’s muscles twitching madly, tensing and relaxing at a speed that couldn’t possibly be healthy. It also couldn’t be comfortable to be dragged along like this, but it had to be better than the alternative.  
  
As soon as Rose managed to haul her away from the door, Cindy slumped into complete immobility. She was breathing, but shallowly and much too quickly, and her skin felt clammy. Well, that would have to wait until the Doctor got back; right now, she needed to figure out whether the dial was actually at the right position. There was nothing for it but to look out the door again.  
  
After gently rolling Cindy aside, Rose crawled back over to the door, keeping her eyes on the grating the whole way. Once she reached the door, she took a deep breath. Hopefully, a quick glance would be enough to determine whether the eggs were breaking.  
  
She glanced--  
  
And everything was pain, fury, _screaming_. Animal screams, with no intelligence to them, but even an animal knows when its young are in danger. She tried to pull her eyes away or just to close them, but there was no room for thought with all the screaming--  
  
Blue eyes met hers, blocking her view of yellow clouds, blocking out the screams. The Doctor. Her awareness of her body returned, and she could feel his hands through the gloves of his spacesuit, firmly pushing her shoulders so that her head was out of range of the door. His gaze broke away from hers and she nearly panicked, but there was no more screaming, just silence in her head as the Doctor pulled himself back up onto the TARDIS, closed the door, and hit the button to stop the transmission.  
  
He pulled off his helmet, and she could see the mixture of fury and concern on his face.  
  
“What could possibly have possessed you to look out that door once Cindy had already passed out?” he snapped.  
  
“Had,” Rose said, somehow having trouble remembering how communicating worked when it wasn’t mind-screaming. “Had to. See. Setting. Right.”  
  
“It was,” he said, some of the fury fading as he removed his gloves. “Worked perfectly. Didn’t realize they’d put up a fuss like that, though. Should have. Will you be all right if I help Cindy out first? Seems like she got more of it.”  
  
“Yes,” Rose agreed. “Hanging. Outside.”  
  
“She was stuck out in it?”  
  
Rose nodded. The Doctor said something that definitely sounded like swearing, although Rose didn’t recognize the language. He put his hands on Cindy’s temples and closed his eyes.  
  
The Doctor stayed that way for a long moment, long enough that Rose began to worry. Then Cindy’s breathing slowed to a more normal pace, and he opened his eyes and grinned.  
  
“She’ll be fine. Brain was a bit overloaded, but I’ve helped her sort it out. Now she just needs sleep. Your turn.”  
  
“Turn?” Rose asked. Talking was so odd. Would it make more sense to scream her feelings directly into his mind?  
  
“It’s going to take you a while to recover on your own,” the Doctor said. “I can help by connecting my mind to yours, walking you through it. Only if you want me to. It’s fine if you don’t.”  
  
“Want you,” Rose said.  
  
“All right.” He knelt beside her and reached towards her face. “Close your eyes. I’m not going to go rooting around, but if anything pops into your head that you don’t want me to see, imagine closing a door in front of it. I won’t look.”  
  
Rose closed her eyes.  
  
No words passed back and forth, not exactly, but she could feel the Doctor there in her thoughts, a cool, solid presence, like touching stone in the shade on a hot day. He led her through her mind, showed her the places where she kept words, helped her relax mental pathways that had been overloaded from the barrage.  
  
She had the thought that it felt good to have his hands framing her face like this, that he was in a perfect position to kiss her, and quickly put a door in front of it. But there was no way to hide how she felt about him; it was everywhere, all through her mind. She could feel him skirting around it, but wasn’t sure whether it was out of respect for her privacy or because he disapproved.  
  
As soon as she thought that, though, he let a little warmth creep through. Affection that hinted at hidden depths.  
  
After what felt like ages, he pulled away and she opened her eyes.  
  
“Better?” he asked.  
  
“Loads,” she said, the word coming easily to her.  
  
“Good. Let me get Cindy to the med bay.” He stood, and went to pick up the ginger woman where she lay on the floor.  
  
“Will she be all right?” Rose asked.  
  
“Just needs to sleep,” he said.  
  
“Good,” she said, following him down the corridor. “I don’t know how she kept watching for so long.”  
  
“Well, when she wakes up you can ask her,” the Doctor said. Rose went ahead of him to open the door to the medbay, and he lay Cindy down on one of the examination beds.  
  
Cindy stirred, shifting to a more comfortable position, and Rose’s gaze was drawn to the bruise on her face.  
  
“Are you, um, gonna fix her bruises while she’s in here?” she asked. He’d done as much for her before, not that she’d ever been bruised in quite the same way...  
  
“Ah, no,” the Doctor said, his smile morphing into a look of discomfort. “No, I offered once and she, um. She told me she likes them.”  
  
“Oh.” Rose toyed with her hair, still looking at Cindy and not the Doctor. “Is that why you left them? Because she likes them?”  
  
“Partly.”  
  
“Just partly? What’s the other part, then?”  
  
“Rose,” he sighed. “If we have to have this excruciatingly awkward conversation, can it wait until we’ve gotten Cindy home and made sure everything’s settled?”  
  
“Yeah, all right.”  
  
Normally this was about the time they would have left, but they weren’t going to dump Cindy off still unconscious or fly off with her, so they Doctor landed the TARDIS back in the Setting Sun’s supply closet. There was still a crowd of people in the public area of the brothel, although Morgan was nowhere to be seen, presumably still overseeing the situation on the top floors.  
  
It was weird how much Rose had gotten used to thinking the word “brothel” over the past day. _It’s a different morality, get used to it or go home, she remembered the Doctor saying._ Apparently you really could get used to anything.  
  
The Doctor went to get one of the employees to call Morgan and let her know the crisis was over. While he was gone, Cindy started to wake up.  
  
“Hey,” Rose said. “How’re you feeling?”  
  
“Like someone was playing the cymbals inside my head,” Cindy said. “And hung over. Could I get some water?”  
  
“Sure,” Rose said, and got her a glass of water and some painkillers. “These should help.”  
  
“Ta.” Cindy swallowed them and drained the glass. “Did we do it? Is the city safe?”  
  
“Everyone’s safe,” Rose confirmed. “The Doctor’s beating himself up a bit for not having protected you better, though, I think.”  
  
“He shouldn’t be,” Cindy said. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat. He did something, didn’t he? In my head?”  
  
“Yeah. Did the same for me.”  
  
“Good.” She smiled, almost dreamily. “It was nice. I should get him to do that next time I see him. It’d be fantastic aftercare.”  
  
“Right,” Rose said. Somehow the thought of the Doctor going to Cindy again in the future hadn’t occurred to her before. She got up to refill Cindy’s glass. “How could you stand it, having those things in your head for so long? I barely lasted a second.”  
  
“It was a lot stronger at the end than when it started,” she said. “I managed to put it aside until the eggs actually started breaking. Then it was overwhelming.”  
  
“Put it aside?”  
  
“Yeah, it’s…” Cindy blushed. “When you like doing things that really hurt, it doesn’t mean that they don’t hurt. So you get good at letting one part of you feel the pain and the rest of you focus on the pleasure--I mean, normally pleasure. I wasn’t getting off on being telepathically attacked by nonsentients or anything. Just a different use for the skill.”  
  
“Oh.” Rose thought for a moment. “If you don’t mind me asking, how do you figure out if you like that sort of thing?”  
  
“Well, if anything sounds good, you try it, and you go from there. If you like the idea of having a big strong man toss you over his knee and tan your bottom, as an example, you find a bloke you trust and who knows what he’s doing and ask him to help you experiment.” She looked concerned. “But you can’t force it. Sometimes people just aren’t compatible that way.”  
  
“Right,” Rose said, squirming a little. The idea of the Doctor, her Doctor, ice blue eyes and brilliance, tossing her over his knee...it was definitely doing _something_ for her. “I’ll, um. I’ll remember that.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and the Doctor finally talk things out.

“Thank you,” Cindy said. She was standing at the door of the TARDIS, recovered and ready to go. “Both of you. Can’t ever thank you enough.”  
  
“Any time,” the Doctor said, grinning.  
  
“It’s what we do,” Rose added.  
  
Cindy hugged the Doctor, then held her arms out to Rose with a hesitant look on her face. Rose hugged her.  
  
“Take care of yourself,” Cindy whispered. “Don’t let himself boss you around too much.”  
  
“You too,” Rose said. As they broke the hug, she added. “Sorry for being so, well…that first time we talked...”  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Cindy said. “You got over it.”  
  
“Yeah.” Rose smiled. “We’ll see you again sometime.”  
  
“I hope so,” Cindy said, smiling back. “Goodbye.”  
  
“Goodbye,” the Doctor said, and he and Rose boarded the TARDIS and shut the door.  
  
“I’ll get us settled in the vortex,” the Doctor said. “You want to put the kettle on?”  
  
“Sure,” Rose said. She headed to the galley, chewing on her lip. Now was the time for that “excruciatingly awkward conversation” the Doctor had been putting off, but she wasn’t really sure how to even start it.  
  
The tea had just finished steeping when he came in. He sat across from her, eyeing her warily. _As if I might bite,_ she thought, and had to fight down slightly hysterical giggles.  
  
“So,” he said.  
  
“So.” She decided to just dive in. “You like hurting people.”  
  
He flinched.  
  
“Only if they want me to,” he said.  
  
“Yeah, but--why?” She shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, I wasn’t sure you were even interested in _sex,_ let alone…”  
  
“It’s not…” He was struggling for words, she could tell, and that was something of a novelty in itself, the Doctor at a loss. “It’s not a progression from no sex to normal sex to weird sex. Not for me, anyway.”  
  
“So how does it work for you?”  
  
The Doctor sighed.  
  
“Humans evolved to be relatively, well, _nice_ about sex. As far as I understand, the human sex drive is a combination of wanting to feel pleasure and wanting to make your partner feel pleasure. There are humans with kinks and fetishes, but for most of them, those two urges are still a big part of it.”  
  
“Right, okay,” Rose said. She was pretty sure that checked out; she definitely wanted to make the Doctor feel pleasure at least as bad a she wanted him to do the same for her. “But it’s different for you?”  
  
“The...the normative Time Lord sex drive was to feel pleasure and cause pain,” he said. “Not as good an arrangement, which was why most of them--us--didn’t bother with it much.”  
  
“So you don’t care whether the person you’re sleeping with feels good?”  
  
“I do, but it’s sort of…” He sighed. “It’s sort of a fetish. It’s not normal, for a Time Lord. I mean, even if I wasn’t, well, _into_ it, I’d want people I like to be happy and feel good, and I have sex with people I like. But it’s more than that, for me.”  
  
“This is confusing,” Rose said.  
  
“Yeah, sorry,” the Doctor said.  
  
“So...humans want to feel good and make their partners feel good, and some humans want to feel pain or make their partners feel pain. Time Lords want to feel good and make their partners feel pain, and some Time Lords--or, well, just you, sorry--want to make your partner feel good,” Rose summed up.  
  
“Got it,” the Doctor said.  
  
“And is it just Cindy you’re, um, seeing? Or are there others?”  
  
“There’ve been others,” the Doctor said, and shrugged. “Sometimes I run into them. Time machine, and all. But it’s just been Cindy, the last few decades.”  
  
Rose thought for a moment, chewing her lip.  
  
“So what if someone was, you know, interested in you, but they didn’t like pain? That wouldn’t work for you?” she asked.  
  
“Probably not,” he said sadly. “I’d always be missing something, and they’d know that. It’d be frustrating for both of us.”  
  
“So you find someone who does want what you want,” Rose said. “Like Cindy.”  
  
“Yep,” he confirmed. “And so I don’t have to try to find someone who wants what I want and wants to put up with my shite--one in a million, at least--I pay her for her time.”  
  
“But if you did find somebody like that…” Rose fiddled with her hair. “Would you want to have a proper relationship?”  
  
“Rose…” The Doctor looked pained. “If I could change into someone who’d be good for you, I would. But you can’t just make yourself change like that. You can’t force your drives to match someone else’s.”  
  
“That’s what Cindy said,” Rose said. “But what if I’m not sure what I want? I’m not 900 years old, I haven’t tried everything.”  
  
“I don’t know,” he said, and sighed. “I want to say yeah, let’s try it, but...we both want it too much. If it doesn’t work, then what?”  
  
“I still want to try,” she said.  
  
“I don’t want to hurt you and have you not like it but grit your teeth and bear it for my sake,” he said bluntly. “I’m not worth that. You want to experiment, find somebody else you can trust. I’m sure Cindy could recommend someone.”  
  
“I don’t want some stranger,” she said. “I want you.”  
  
“I _can’t,_ Rose. I’ve got too much guilt and anger and mess inside.” His eyes were pleading. “I’ve already pointed a gun at you, remember? And I want it too bad. There are a million ways it could go wrong, and all of them end with me harming you. I won’t do it.”  
  
“Okay,” Rose said reluctantly. If it did go wrong, and he felt so bad he didn’t want her on board any more...she couldn’t risk that. “But I’m going to figure out what I want, somehow. And then we’ll talk again.”  
  
“Thank you,” the Doctor said, and he pulled her into a tight hug.  
  
She hugged him back, realizing she’d probably have to be content with that. After all, what were the odds that she’d meet a nice, trustworthy, sexually experienced guy who’d be willing to help her figure out whether she’d be sexually compatible with the Doctor any time soon?  
  
It was enough just to be here, with him. Even if it turned out they’d never be able to have the kind of relationship she’d really prefer, being together was all that really mattered. The TARDIS contentedly hummed through the non-space of the vortex, with the Doctor and Rose Tyler inside, and everything was okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, that's the end for this story...but there will be a (smutty) sequel.


End file.
